My 73-year-old dad cusses like a sailor. He always has and probably always will. I’m not saying that he’s perpetually pissed off—far from it. He cusses when he’s happy, heartbroken, excited or disappointed and all points in between. Why use regular every day words when you can string together a colorful, blistering description of something as mundane as the weather? Yes, cussing is to my dad’s vocabulary like Tabasco is to Cajun food. The spicier the better.

I remembered one of his favorite phrases, or “Butch-isms”, as I like to call them, while I was reading yet another self-help article about staying in the present. Any time my dad observed repeated stupidity (usually watching his beloved Saints), he would exclaim, “Get your head out of your a**!” Hearing this as a child, I thought it was the grossest, funniest thing a person could say. But when it came back to me as I was trying powerfully hard to stay in the NOW, it made a whole lot more sense.

Think about it... what if your head was actually up your a**? It would absolutely stink, not to mention be dark and uncomfortable. There would be no moving forward because you certainly couldn’t see, and your whole world would literally be upside down. Is living with our heads in the past really any different?

When we’re stuck in the past we allow ourselves to be tortured repeatedly by the evil triplets, woulda, coulda and shoulda. We’ve all read enough of the same books and articles, as well as watched enough Oprah to know that our subconscious mind doesn’t recognize these rehashed events as the past. It only knows that it’s being tortured right here right now. The sharp words you’d like to take back, the embarrassment of a middle-school misstep or heartache of love unreturned cut and burn and ache now just as they did then. And here’s the most ridiculous part... we choose to do this to ourselves over and over and OVER. If that’s not repeated stupidity I don’t know what is.

We can’t change what’s back there. It is what it is. Over. It seems to me that the kindest thing we can do for ourselves, as well as others, is lovingly release all that was dark and dank about our past and move on. I mention others because let’s face it, if our head is up our a**, we’re probably wreaking havoc by bumping into everything and everyone around us. Right now is the time to choose to face forward, enjoy the light and breathe in the fresh potential hidden in every single present moment. As Butch might say, “Get your head out of your past!” I know I’m going to do my damnedest.